Milo Talbuth
"Milo Talbuth" was the name chosen by the unknown American musician whom signed on to Project Apollo with Sangreal Corporation in 1982. An early pioneer of electronic music, working with a number of other artists in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, he never achieved the fame so many musicians seek, despite his passion and talent. Nevertheless, his was a talent that couldn't be overlooked and so it was that Milo took his place with Project Apollo. Hired to be a music tutor for the SID6000, (the sentient computer which Project Apollo had constructed at the behest of the Sangreal corporation), he found in SID6000 an eager and apt pupil as well as a true friend. Milo often claimed that they "shared the same soul" in their passion for music, and he is one of the few humans that the SID6000 credits as having more technical skill than it. Milo's current whereabouts are unknown, something that causes the SID6000 no end of distress. Appearance Milo had two manners of dress: stage dress and everyday wear. He stressed the importance of this to SID6000 on numerous occaisions, claiming "That while its okay to be yourself in your everyday clothes, your stage dress has to be electric, it has to move and be moving to others, it cannot be static. Its alright to be overlooked on the street, but on stage you have to be commanding, even your outfit must call people to attention!" And Milo put this belief into practice, sometimes to this dismay of his coworkers on "Casual Friday". Normally, Milo preferred to wear his faded seventies concert t-shirts and old jeans. He always wore a large Texas belt buckle as part of his casual dress, for irony he'd claim, as he himself was from Maine. His stage wear though was all his own design, it fit him snug but wasn't the body hugging spandex some many of his contemporaries adopted. Milo went all out for his performances, having a special silk/polyester blend made for him that looked like a white lounge suit but glimmered opalescently under the lights of stage. Depending on how you looked at him shined like spun silver, or gleamed like mother of pearl. His shoes were fine white leather and to top it off was his brilliant scarlet cape. (Though he often confided to SID6000 that he felt more ridiculous in that outfit than he did commanding, it nevertheless set the audience aroar and brought all eyes to him, which Milo swore was the secret.) Always though, Milo kept his black hair cut short, so that it never covered the intensity of his pale green eyes. Personality Milo was a person who did things with intensity. Those things that mattered to him he took very seriously, and he prided himself on never having things half-finished. His greatest passion wasn't the making of music, but the sharing of music. To him music was the ideal form of communication, for it could without language, convey complex emotion, thought and meaning - all without a single word spoken. He often told the SID6000 that "There exists a place beyond here, where people don't talk, they sing, people have all kinds of names for it, but I know it's there". Milo was a shy person around crowds. It was one of the reasons he needed such outlandish stage dress, as it brought attention to his outfits and never him. He never sought fame, he just wanted make music and share it with others, to bask in the reflected glow of the happiness his creation brought them. Of course, he had his faults. He was a carouser, and would often bemoan SID6000's inability to drink, claiming "that wine, like women, was an intrinsic part of song". He got in trouble more than once for hitting on Kyoko Takahashi , and Jonas Mudd had to issue disciplinary warnings against him on several occaisions for talking a little too freely to the secretarial staff. History Milo of course, is not his real name. Like all members of Project Apollo, he was to invent a psuedonym by which the other members of the Project, as well the SID6000 would know him by. This was a requirement the Sangreal Corporation had for all their shadow project employees, with the intention being that if you never knew your co-worker's names, you could never find them outside of work to compare notes. This they felt would prevent leaks and prevent corporate espionage down the line - the last thing the Sangreal Corporation wanted was their ex-employee's building an model A.I. on their own. So he picked a name that meant a lot to him, it was the name of a character in a book he loved as a child. Throughout his life he had always identified with the main character, a man named Milo who loses his job, and his best friend all in a single day, and begins to play the guitar to alleviate his sadness, before finding himself in a world of dreams. The book had been a gift from his grandfather, and it always grieved Milo that he couldn't find another copy, it being so rare. The last name of "Talbuth" was based off yet another childhood favorite, "The Phantom Tollbooth " whose main character is also named Milo. Milo spent a great of time with the SID6000, instructing it in music and teaching it everything he knew about the music business, rock and roll and electronic music from around the world. This time, Milo often said, was the happiest time of his life. Alas, it was not to last. Spurred on by Milo's stories and his encouragement towards SID6000's own musical efforts, it began to dream of making its own music, an all A.I. band that could tour alongside Milo (though the computer never mentioned this part, perhaps surrounded by secrets, it felt like it should have one of its own). So SID6000 began hacking the Japanese airwaves/radiowaves, trying to advertise for his own upcoming musical debut. This alerted the Sangreal Corporation that something was amiss with Project Apollo, and they were quick to bring the hammer down upon the whole thing. The scientists were ordered to dismantle the computer, and send the orignal internal hard drive along with back up hard disks to the corporate headquarters. Jonas had intended that everything be wiped clean before the Japanese government discovered that a foreign corporation had been using their islands to build and house an experimental A.I. - however, Tetsuro Matsumoto and Kyoko had secretly worked a plan the very day prior to save SID6000 from its demise, one that hinged upon Milo. Milo would switch the drives, taking the SID6000 and replacng the hard disk with another just filled with junk data. He was too meet Kyoko shortly after the meeting, and then they were going to take the SID6000 to a safe location so that it could follow its own dreams. But something happened to Milo after he escaped with SID6000 and he never met with Kyoko. While Captain O.G. Hackmore reports that he has been searching every record Japan has for the whereabouts of Milo, it is unknown what exactly happened to him. The trail ends at his apartment, where he returned to before his disappearance, and SID6000 fears the worst. It turns out that later that month the scientist who referred to himself as Tetsuro Matsumoto was found dead in an alley way behind a Tokyo nightclub, his throat slit, and just days after the shutdown it seems, Kyoko Takahashi went missing as well.